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keddre

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Everything posted by keddre

  1. What are your water parameters like, and are you dosing ferts (preferably root tabs)? Looking at your pics, your tank looks a little too clean for 2-3 month old tank. If your tank is empty, you might want to add root tabs or ghost feed, just to get some gunk for the plants to pull nutrients from
  2. You're setup is sweet and I was not attacking you. It actually looks like it has pretty low overhead, some LEDs and wallspace. The daisy-chained extension cords are a little scary though 🤣
  3. If I was to do plants for profit again, I would do truly aquatic plants (like val, and bulbs) with dirt and airstones. Then you won't need to dose liquids as much, won't have to worry about melting as much, save money on CO2 and true aquatics will grow faster (in my experience) than marginals do. Obviously your tank/water is different than mine, but java ferns and crypts don't grow fast enough for me to make it worth trying to "mass produce". Side note, my LFS kicks me extra money if I pot them or bundle them ahead of time...A significant amount of extra Second side note, In My Opinion you won't really make money of a high tech setup. Once you factor in lights, gas, and ferts, you're spending more money than it's worth. The more variables you can delete, the more stable you will be. My best "profit" on anything is the summer time when I throw my plants outside with solar air pumps, gunk and mother nature Edit: Forgot to add, once you get bulb plants going you can "propagate" them by twisting the bulb off, fridging it for a couple months (make sure it's a dry season bulb), and sell the plant that you twisted free...This doesn't apply to crinums
  4. I don't know why I remember this, but mine was a 5 gallon with a black moore, betta and Bala shark. I was a young kid and my parents got it for me. I've had one constantly since though
  5. Two months ago, I started trying my own DIY root tabs, and thought about sharing my experiences. First, they are a mix of laterite (red clay), organic potting soil, and a dash of all in one root tabs cracked in half. My thought was/is that the common fertilizer will give immediate nutrition, the dirt will give slower nutrition and the clay will suck in stuff from the water column to give longer term nutrition (I should add that this is in addition to the daily water column feedings on my autodoser). Results: plant growth: No real difference, I'm still getting good growth from my vals, crinums and madagascar lace, but I can't say this is due to my root tabs. My picker swords are finally growing again, but who knows why, could be just the warmer weather other observations: My scuds, black worms and pods are loving the new tabs. the flock to the dirt location and I have seen a boom in the population...I bet my fish are loving it. Also, an increase in mulm as some of the dirt shifts upwards through the gravel. Other tank params: 0 ammonia, nitrite and some nitrates (around .5ppm). 70-76 degree water temps (heater only cuts on during the day as I play with getting plants to flower), 1mm of Flourish and daily and 1mm of Thrive all-in-one every three days (need to up this for more nitrate though,) and an old marineland light from high-school that's on for 11 hours/day
  6. Double-check your test kit, PetSmart will usually test for free. Also, I recommend not dosing easy green because it adds nitrogen (nitrates) (as well as other stuff) and it's not going to be needed too heavily with your plants; maybe look at a micro-nutrient only fertilizer like Flourish. Lastly, how is your jungle val potted? If it's still in rockwool and your adding root tabs, the rockwool can be soaking in the root tab and leaking out into the water
  7. Setting up my first intentional breeding pond for white clouds this year. They did good last year with a half-butt effort, but I let them stay out too late and they ended up freezing to death around February (survived a couple ice-overs, but it got colder than I expected). The setup: 20 gallon planter (15 gallons of water actual), seeded a month ago with a year old sponge filters from my 55 (I should add that this pond was setup all winter though from last year's tubbing season). Like last year they are powered by solar air pumps that cut on around mid-day and cut off around 10ish pm. I will be adding a second though for two/pond. Also a month ago, I added scuds, detritus worms and black worms from my 55, and I tried some water flea eggs that I got off a big box website and it appears to have worked (hatched indoor first). Substrate is about 1/2" of detritus from last year, crushed coral and crushed lava rocks for the eggs to fall into. Plants: Peace lilly that's doing "meh," some kind of emergent grass, hornwort, duckweed (to feed goldfish in different setup), and I'll move Cabomba over if it does well in a different pond. Water params: From last year, temps will run 50-90 degrees depending on the day, and usually around 15degrees cooler at night. I have been running ghost feedings with an auto-feeder every 8 hours for a month and params are 0ammonia, 0 nitrite, 0.5 nitrate, off the charts hardness/kh/ph The fish: now the fun part, I had to hit the LFS yesterday because I had 0 females, but my starting population will be green finned/peach body shaped males from my main population and generic females. The hopes is that they breed enough that next year I can narrow the population down to two different lines of peach colored white clouds and green-finned white clouds Random aside: Water will be changed every other day to water garden Photos: Sorry, it's hard to get a picture of the green fins
  8. I do dirt in pots with a gravel or sand topper, but mine are also completely submerged for my fish to rummage trough. If your worried about mosquitos, checkout mosquito fish, they are smaller (2-ish inches) and can handle temp swings small ponds like that have, or add a small solar air pump. Squitos don't like movement
  9. If you do, just a word of advice, put them in the shade if you make them. I don't get a choice since I'm a top-floor apartment dweller, but these smaller ponds get HAWT when the sun hits them. nice
  10. Ludwigia Repens did well as an emergent for me. The stalk was red, but even with full sun the leaves never turned red for me unless they got a shock of cold. There's also red versions of Amazon swords, but I can't get it to keep emergent growth without alot of humidity. Every time it does emerge, the leaf dries up and collapses in a day. As a general rule, I think most stem plants will grow out of water if given a chance
  11. +1 for the white cloud minnows. Nothing looks better than when the sun hits them and their bodies turn that lovely peach color. For winter they may be fine in your bigger pond. Mine survived about three ice-overs and were still active in the 40s until February hit and my 30 gallon Ohio pond went completely solid (oops). On the same note, they also did fine at 92degree water temps for a couple weeks (I have plans for that this year). They will try to breed, but fry population won't be huge with platies munching on them My paradise gouramis did fine outside too (different pond). They slowed down at 50-ish degrees, went into a hibernation-like state at 40ish degrees, thrived in the 60's-90's Mosquito fish: Did way better than guppies. Were active down to 40's but did not survive the 30's; did fine in the 90's. I will add they were complete butts though and abused anything that was with them (may have been a size issue), so they got their own 30 gallon pond. I tried guppies outside but (again it was a 30 gallon pond) the Ohio temp swings were too much. It may have been fine in the summer, but in Spring we will go from 60 degrees to snowing the next day and my guppies couldn't handle it. (Wild types did slightly better but realistically no difference).
  12. It is, and thank you. I was just being tunnel-blind for the word "builds"
  13. That is a good point, I was thinking capped, but a charcoal/gravel mix with a gravel cap makes more since (if I did this) noted I wonder, because if it's buried under gravel how much would it actually pull from the water column, and the leach out vs. root uptake speed. I guess this is why smart people have test tanks and not just show tanks I wasn't aware of this. I knew it would break apart from friction together (bumping, shaking, gyrating), but didn't know it could simply break down while being mostly stagnate. I most likely won't, at least not in the near future. I like to just sit around and come up with half-bake, but not totally uneducated ideas
  14. I have white clouds and 4" fancies in my 55 gallon and they are doing fine so far. The white clouds can dart away and my fancies can't fit them in their mouth yet. You're main two issues will be diet differences (Goldies want a little more plant matter) and harassment among the white clouds. The males will harass the heck out of females during spawning, so just something to think of
  15. I may give it a shot with a spare 20 Gallon, I have . Maybe do three different sealed pots with gravel, capped dirt and capped charcoal I did not thing about that, but will give it a search. Searching old posts is a three brain-cell idea and I'm still stuck with two lol
  16. Two forum suggestions: Can we add a "Builds" forum and an "Experiments" forum?
  17. This is more of a theoretical question then a "I want to do it question". I was looking at my activated charcoal that I haven't used on up-teen years and wondering if it would work as a fertilizer or laterite replacement in a planted tank? My thought process is that at the beginning it would add zero value, but as it absorbs stuff in the water, it could become a thing that roots could latch onto the pull that "stuff" out; more of a long play, and not an instant benefits thing. Has anyone played with this idea before? My understanding is this is how clay works, so it would be the same concept with a more expensive item.
  18. This isn't an answer, just things to think about. I'm also pulling this info from the writing on the bags, and the amazon description. Fluval Stratum: Mineral rich volcano dirt, may cause algae bloom before plants catch up (will happen in a new tank anyway), bigger grains so that it doesn't compact, will lower PH eco-complete: wet gravel that's been soaking in a water bag so that it already has some Beneficial bacteria on it, not similar sized grains so it could compact (bag advertises that it won't), will raise PH, contains floraspore (Mycorrhiza fungi, quick google search below makes me skeptical) to increase plant nutrient uptake article on fungi: https://hort.extension.wisc.edu/articles/mycorrhizae/
  19. Long time, no update. I ended up planting them like regular plants outside (sorry I didn't snag pics) and letting the leaves naturally die off. The bulb stayed healthy, so I just let them sit for about 3-4 months. 3 or four weeks ago, I finally set my 55 back up when I needed to bring my fish in from the ponds and it looks like my stupid method worked. Aside from the tank re-cycling, the bulbs rotted off their outer layer, then threw up new leaves. As of today, they both appear healthy and you would never know they were out of water for months. I do have three other crinums (type unknown) outside being snowed on and somehow they still have green leaves. I'm guessing that specific type is a flood plant, because it's thrived 100% emerged, but merely survives submersed. Life is still life, so I haven't re-addressed flowering any yet
  20. I'm curious if anyone has artificially created a dry season for bulb plants before? specifically Crinum thainums. Long story short, my tank went to mayhem during my honeymoon and with a ton of life changes it will be four or five months before I can do it right again. Most of my plants I am just selling off because they are easily attainable (ludwigia, pearlweed, etc.) but for my crinums that I still want to flower one day, I want to try and give them a dry season. The method I've tried before with smaller crinums (unkown type) is to put the whole plant in submersed soil with emersed leaves, let the plant reclaim the leaves, then put the crinum in a bag of pool filter sand (because I have a ton) then let it sit for a couple months; while I know the actual dry season is 6 months (according to a book)...human time. Of my five test samples, two survived, so the success is iffy. But with my tank in distress, I want to move on to my two big boys. Any tips on how to do it different, or just cross my fingers and do the "known" method?
  21. Thanks man, I was struggling to find any good detailed info on this guy. Mines grown about 5’, but now it’s just balling up and blocking light. I moved my second one outside to see if it flowers and it threw all its leaves off, so it doesn’t like being messed with
  22. What’s the proper way to trim crinum thainum? Between it and my lillies my tank is growing dark and whenever you just cut it back like grass, that leaf stops growing completely. included are pictures are no longer growing leaves that I cut and old leaves that span the whole 55
  23. It's fine, I have to ask for more info at least 20 times a day at work lol. I'll give that a shot, but educational question. Could upping ferts do a similar thing? Then the plants would (theoretically) grow faster and out-compete the algae?
  24. First, I have not tested this. Second, can you massage it gently into the gravel?
  25. Also, stag horn algae looks just like it. Thanks y’all. I got so focused on hair algae that I had google tunnel vision
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